A DVD-quality copy of actioner “The Expendables 3,” starring Sylvester Stallone, has been downloaded via piracy sites more than 189,000 times over a 24-hour period — three weeks ahead of the U.S. premiere.

The leak of the film on the Internet ahead of its theatrical debut, an unusually rare occurrence, could dampen box office for “Expendables 3.” It’s also worth noting that the target demo for the movie is young males, who are the biggest users of illegal file-sharing services.

With 21 days left to go before the Aug. 15 premiere, the number of illegal downloads of “Expendables 3” will certainly soar into the millions.

Lionsgate, which is distributing the movie, declined to comment. The original source of the pirated copy is unclear; user comments posted on piracy websites indicate the rip is genuine.

Pirated copies of “Expendables 3” began cropping up on torrent-sharing sites Wednesday and downloads started to spike Thursday, according to data provided by piracy-analytics firm Excipio. As of 6 p.m. Eastern Thursday, the movie had been downloaded 189,052 times worldwide, with 42,216 of those in the U.S., according to Excipio. [UPDATE: As of Sunday, July 27, at 6 p.m. Eastern, Excipio had tracked 1.13 million illegal downloads of “Expendables 3” worldwide.]

A similar a leak happened in 2009, when a rough cut of 20th Century Fox’s “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” was shared on Megaupload.com about a month before the tentpole’s preem. Fox estimated that at least 15 million people downloaded the movie, and represented tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue.

The FBI in December 2009 arrested Bronx resident Gilberto Sanchez for illegally uploading “Wolverine,” and he was sentenced to a year in prison. Meanwhile, U.S. law enforcement officials in 2012 shut down Megaupload, and the MPAA has sued the defunct website seeking to collect monetary damages.

The first two “Expendables” movies, both starring Stallone, were released in mid-August in 2010 and 2012 by Lionsgate. The first installment grossed $275 million worldwide and the second took in more than $300 million.

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I only download movies I really want to see. I still see them in the theater and usually buy the movie. Most movies are not even worth seeing in the theater. I wait until they come out for rental if I watch them at all.

I think the people who download films all the time aren’t regular moviegoers, so I don’t think box office will be affected at all. Wolverine still grossed nearly $400m a few years ago despite being leaked onto the net before release. Action fans will still queue up to see this, good or bad.

People are nuts to download anything on bittorrent- it shows your internet address! Its like stealing and leaving your driver’s license. And it’s usually innocent parents who have to deal with the fallout. That being said, it should not hurt the movie unless the movie is awful- if it is a great movie, it might even help it.

maybe but just maybe Sly uploaded a copy himself so he does not have to deal with the questions “why did this film not made money”,now he can just lay back and play the “leaked” game and blame the loss on that

As a former theatre manager, I’d like to say hopefully we can put to bed the notion it’s videos taken in theatres that are the problem today. It’s industry insiders/post houses/critics that cause the most damage in the piracy arena. Not like music at all.

The real problem here is that we’ve raised a couple of generations of thieves. Kids today think everything should be free without stopping to consider that it costs lots of money to produce films, music, TV shows, etc. Downloading a pirated movie is no different than stuffing a DVD down your pants and walking out of the store without paying for it. Shoplifting is still shoplifting, regardless of methodology.

No the problem is because of the industry still being stuck in the 60s, we have all this DRM and legal bullshit. Hollywood is afraid of technology, they don’t know how to interface with it, so they call their suits to write love letters to everyone. You know what would stop piracy? Something like Netflix, without having to wait for months for a DVD release. Unobstrusive ads, etc. People would pay. It reminds me of game of thrones when season 1 came out. You either had to buy an HBO subscription or wait for DVD release. Ironically it was easier to pirate it than to buy it. Stop making enemies of your customers industry…

LOL :)))))) please educate yourself before posting comments :), a pirated copy of a game or a movie does not mean lost revenue for the company because the pirate may or may not have bought the original game or went to see the movie in the first place. And second in the past few years Hollywood has seen a huge boost in profit look it up on-line and see the amount of money I am talking about so please spare me the “lots o money to produce movies ” when actors are getting paid 40m of dollars. Do you think that profit are direct proportional to salaries for the rest of the simple people that work on sets ? Are you so naive? when Fox offered 75 Billion dollars to buy Time Warner ooohhh look they are so poor :)))…. please spare me your ignorance, anviled into you simple unintuitive brain by so called NEWS and Newspapers and the rest of the media.
P.S. it has been proven that people who pirate games,movies are more likely to buy products than people who don’t pirate. Use critical thinking before posting don’t offer arguments from news anchors that read them of a monitor.

It was obviously leaked by Lionsgate to build publicity for the theatrical release this is why they released a DVD screener not a HD/Blueray screener. The studios release lower quality screeners so that people will see the film but then want to watch it again in a better format at the cinema. All this will create massive Buzz for the film resulting in more people going to watch it at cinemas.

Crisp digital file copies always begin with someone who was associated with the film’s production. Most film pirates now disdain cam rips and will wait for the DVD quality version to appear on the net. That can happen within a week or two. On a hot movie, there’s usually some by the third week after the film’s debut. Recently Fox was able to keep The Grand Budapest Hotel undownloaded until just a week before the DVD appeared in the US, but after it had appeared in Europe.

If someone passes me a screener and the movie is good, I am more likely to pay to see it in the theater than otherwise. I will also buy the bluray. I actually see more movies in the theaters, buy more discs and spend truly disturbing amounts on home theater equipment because of the digital sharing revolution. The whining that the industry does about piracy hurting profits seems a bit disingenuous to me. Before this, we complained about how labor organizations were the death of the industry. But then the pirates came along and we cried for how they were hurting the below the line guys who we had just tried to demonize a couple of years prior. Remember when home video was going to kill theater going? Betamax and vhs will stop people from paying for the cineplex? Laserdisc? The blockbuster was going to eliminate any market for independent film? There wil always be something new for the Henny-Penny’s of the world to cry that the sky is falling over. With all of the content venues opening over the past ten years, it’s not about the industry dying. It’s about evolving.

Piracy will kill the theatrical business. In this case, blame Bulgaria which is Europe’s hotbed for such shady activity and where they shot the movie to cut corners and avoid paying an IATSE crew a fare rate and MPHW for their work. Now they will probably loose more than that on the back end. I’m not advocating criminal activity, which piracy is — it’s stealing — and it’s a very serious problem but this can be thought of as poetic justice.

That’s the thing, Concerned: the greasy little thieves download (that is to say, steal) just for the sake of downloading. The quality of the moviegoing experience doesn’t matter to them at all. They think the world owes them free stuff, and they take it. Check the stats on the top illegal downloaders: young males. The phrase “overinflated sense of entitlement” comes to mind….

I watched This Movie Last Night Online. Streamed. Amazing! A ride you don’t want to end. This Leaked Copy,IMO,Takes nothing away from People like me that will still go to experience this movie in the theater. Getting with you’re buddies and going to watch this is still going to happen.I know I’m still going to pay To watch this In theaters. It’s that good. A Super Cast Of characters. I enjoyed Watching. Antonio Bandaras he was Hilarious In this movie.Ronda Rousey Sexy And Totally Bad Ass.All Great Actors.A Diff Buy For me. And Hollywood don’t sweat The Leak You’re Still Going To see Chart Topping Numbers In the end.A Movie That Just Keep Getting Better And Better. Keep’em Coming Stallone.

Good. It was a PG-13 ripoff starring Kellan Lutz with minimal screen time for all of the old school stars we actually wanted to see. Worst editing and CGI ever and I sincerely hope Glen Powell is finished in Hollywood. I’ve not seen a worse actor.

The mainstream press actually held off on this a full day after it blew up. Even so, it is foolish to think someone who reads Variety regularly would A) pirate movies and B) be a fan of ‘The Expendables’.